Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Consider My Tears (Grateful Tuesdays #8)

Father,

I exalt you in front of everyone who cares to look. You alone are complete. You alone love, and you decided to pour your completion and your love into our hearts (or, as Lamentations might have it, "heart" singular). Well, first you decided to create us, to communicate us into existence, and that itself was an act of love. You could have kept your love to yourself, you perfect Trinity you, and none of us would have been any the wiser. But that's not what you decided to do. Instead you have given us life, and you keep giving us life even after we reject it time and again. That's the part that I think is pretty amazing. Well, I mean, it's all pretty amazing. I wonder why that is? It's just the truth, why should the truth be amazing? Wow, maybe I should get off this philosophical limb before it cracks under me. I'll think about it later.

Dear God, I thank you for what I see right now: For my watch and for The Paradox of Mr. Pond by G. K. Chesterton, even though I haven't read it and for Albert, who serves me faithfully despite Jason's mockings of Macs.

I thank you for good grammar, God. And for good punctuation. I wish I had better writing and punctuation. It seems silly to be thanking you for something like that, but I guess what I'm really thanking you for is for that which leads to effective communication. Communication is maybe a little bit of a boring word, but it's so romantic! What high adventures lie in wait for he who decides to join the quest for good communication! What fearsome dragons and terrible ogres! But what great battles! The blood and the smell and the stickiness of it all. God you know that, even now, even though spirit soars at the beauty of it, I shirk from such a life. I run and hide my head in the nearest bush. Without you, that is. I need you, God; you call me to real life, but you forget that I'm a ghost, not fit for that world. Don't forget. Don't leave me to lift rocks I can't even grasp.

But you haven't, have you, God? If anyone's done the leaving it's been me, hasn't it? Thank you for your faithfulness. Do you know what I mean by "faithfulness", God? It's kind of a boring word, isn't it, God? What I mean by it is not so much a dog's kind of faithfulness, the kind that is faithful just because it's kind of blind and doesn't really know any better, but rather the faithfulness of Hosea, who saw everything his wife had done and loved her anyway. That's crazy, God. But it's a reflection of your love. Thank you for your love, God; I've done much worse thing to you then Hosea's wife ever did to him, and you intensely love me anyway. Your love burns for me, and I think that's crazy.

God, even when I come to you with fake tears on my face and poison in my walk, you listen to me and guide me back to a better way of doing.

Thank you for tea, and for friends and for tea with friends. Thank you for the delightful tea I had this morning and for the delight company I shared it with.

Thank you a million times over for everyone who is praying for me. I value that so much. I'm so needful of it.

Thank you for Desta, who loves me, God and sees you in me. Thank you that he's praying for me and for what he has reminded me about prayer and my relationship with you and about obedience. God, I want to be obedient so bad. I want to please you, to present myself pleasing to you. I'm so bad at showing my love for you. I can talk all day long about you, God, but when it comes time to act, I simply go limp. I do nothing.

And yet you love me. With an intense love that I have never known the like of in my own flesh.

Thank you for brilliant sunsets! And for Katie and the friend that she is. Thank you for my family. Thank you for chalk and for chalkboards. I do love to draw on a chalkboard.

But the chalkboard in front of me says it's time to get back to work. God, don't let this thanksgiving stop; let this be only the beginning.